What to Remember Ahead of ‘Killing Eve’ Season 4
It's been two years since the last new episode of 'Killing Eve.' Here's what you need to know before its final season begins.
The complicated relationship at the core of the Emmy-winning drama Killing Eve gives us whiplash. Each season poses the same questions: Will the two leading ladies; a) kill each other? b) stifle their feelings in order to live a charade? or c) run off into the sunset together?
Maybe this fourth and final go-around, which premieres on Sunday, February 27 at 8pm ET on BBC America, will provide proper closure to the high-fashion cat-and-mouse game former M16 agent Eve (Sandra Oh) and unpredictable assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) have engaged in since 2018, leaving a body count well into the double digits in its wake.
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Season 4 picks up after an undetermined amount of time since last season’s cliffhanger finale found the pair facing each other on a London bridge. Thanks to this flashforward into the future and the 33 pandemic-imbued months in between seasons, even the most ardent fan needs a refresher.
Here’s a crash course on where we last left the main characters - the ones still living, at least. To watch season 4 of Killing Eve on BBC America with Sling TV, use the link at the bottom of this page.
Niko
Eve’s beleaguered husband (played by Owen McDonnell) has endured so much since the couple’s pleasantly average marriage was upended by Villanelle, and Season 3 threatened to relieve the mustachioed Pole of his mortal duties at the hands of Dasha (Harriet Walter), one of The Twelve’s high-ranking officials who trained Villanelle in her murderous ways. Armed with a pitchfork, Dasha finds Niko in Poland after he has checked himself out of rehab following the death of his co-teacher and potential crush, Gemma. It seemed like curtains for Niko after Dasha jabs the weapon into his throat and leaves a curt note to pin the attack on Villanelle, but he appears a few episodes later in a hospital bed recovering from his wounds where he tells a distraught Eve to “piss off forever.”
Konstantin
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Did Villanelle’s curmudgeonly handler (played by Kim Bodnia) kill Kenny (Sean Delaney), the computer whiz son of his former lover? When confronted by Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) at gunpoint after the M16 bigwig finds out that Kenny contacted him the day before mysteriously falling to his death from the top of the Bitter Pill’s office building, Konstatin swears it was only because Kenny wanted to know if he was his real father. And when he met Kenny in person the following day to warn him that he either needs to join The Twelve or risk the group coming after him for investigating too closely into their shadowy affairs for the online magazine, Kenny backed away in fear and accidentally plummeted over the ledge. Carolyn buys Konstatine’s story (but do we, and, more importantly, Eve and Villanelle?) and he escapes with his life and a Russian doll retrieved for him by Villanelle that might be a gift for his imprisoned daughter, might contain a barcode to help access a stash of money to finance an escape to Cuba, or could be the key to the many secrets of The Twelve.
Carolyn
In mourning over Kenny’s suicide (or accident or muder), and annoyed by her daugther Geraldine’s attempts to comfort her, the stuffy MI6 operative must contend with Paul (Steve Pemberton), her new boss on the Russia desk, who was brought in to clean up the mess she made over the past two seasons. Convinced he’s in cahoots with The Twelve but unable to prove it, Carolyn turns the gun she aimed toward Konstantin’s head for an unsettling length of time while he sputtered out his excuses about Kenny and shoots Paul instead, making it look like a suicide.
Eve
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No matter how hard she tries, Eve never stays away from Villanelle for very long. She lets the obsession derail her life and career, and for what? As much as she uses Villanelle as an excuse to investigate and track down The Twelve, her quest really does begin and end with being in the extravagantly-clothed assassin’s mere presence. Villanelle tracks down Eve on a bus, they tussle and Eve boldly kisses her. Later, Eve discovers a teddy bear on her bed with a recorded voice message from Villanelle that she plays repeatedly. These bewildering acts of affection allow Eve to dig into the truth surrounding Kenny’s death and Niko’s attack, and avoid the easy, laid-out route of blaming Villanelle. Eve confronts Dasha over a cutthroat game of bowling and when she encounters the assassin-maker again on one of her Villanelle-hunting escapades, she purposely steps on her chest, nearly killing her until police sirens in the distance cause her to let up and run away. After a season of near-misses, Eve and Villanelle finally meet up in a dance hall – the site of Villanelle’s first kill – surrounded by elderly couples happily slow dancing. The two join in and wonder if they’ll ever get a chance to age gracefully together. When the bloody confrontation at Paul’s house ends with Constantin on his way to Cuba, they meet on a bridge and admit how dangerous they are for one another. Neither will know peace if they continue to entwine their lives. Villanelle – in a moment of mature clarity – suggests they turn and face opposite directions and simply walk away without looking back at each other. They walk and they keep walking, but not without one last glance.
Villanelle
Has Villanelle gone soft and lost her taste for ruthless killing, like Dasha accuses her of at her own wedding? This central question drives Villanelle’s actions as she ditches her nameless bride to follow Dasha back to The Twelve with the promise of a promotion to Keeper – but first she must train a new recruit. Villanelle taking anyone under her wing ends up as expected: with more people dead than the assignment calls for. The orphanage-raised killer takes a detour to visit the relatives she thought died in a car crash, and finds out her mother kept her older brother and started over with a new family, including an Elton John-obsessed younger half-brother. Villanelle spares the siblings when her mother eventually orders her to leave, but burns the house down with everyone else inside. Upon returning from this ill-fated sojourn, she learns that even as a Keeper, she’s still a lackey who must take orders and acts out by telling Konstantine she’ll leave it all behind and join him in Cuba. To retaliate for his initial gruff refusal to take her, she pushes his daughter, Irina, to act on her hatred of her stepfather and runs him over with a car. After a sloppy job where Villanelle gets herself stabbed in the process, she begs The Twelve for a chance to redeem herself and is sent with Dasha to Scotland to kill a businessman during a golf trip that also goes awry.
Killing Eve premieres Sunday, February 27 at 8 pm ET on BBC America; episodes also air on AMC on Mondays at 8 pm ET. Stream the first two episodes early and commercial-free on Sunday by adding AMC+ to your Sling subscription.